Orion, the Hunter, is the brilliant constellation of the winter evening sky in the north, marked by red Betelgeuse, blue-white Rigel and a belt of three stars.
At a glance
| stars in the figure | 22 |
|---|---|
| nearest star of the figure | Tabit, 26.3 light-years (8.07 pc) |
| farthest star of the figure | Alnilam, 1,980 light-years (606 pc) |
| depth | the farthest is 75 × farther than the nearest |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with.
About Orion
Orion is a hunter of Greek myth and one of the oldest recognised figures in the sky. Betelgeuse, a red supergiant, marks one shoulder and Bellatrix the other; Rigel, a blue supergiant, marks a knee and Saiph the other. Across the middle runs the belt, Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka, and below it hangs the sword, where the Orion Nebula glows as a misty patch to the naked eye.
The figure straddles the celestial equator, so it is seen from almost everywhere on Earth: high in winter evenings in the northern hemisphere, upside down in summer evenings in the southern. Many of its bright blue stars belong to a single family of young, massive stars born from the same vast cloud of gas, the cloud whose lit edge is the Orion Nebula.
What you see in the piece
Seen from Earth the Hunter is flat. Flown out to, the shield star Tabit turns out to be a close neighbour of the Sun, while the belt star Alnilam lies far behind the rest, and the belt itself, three stars in a neat row, pulls apart into stars at quite different depths.
Questions
What are the three stars in Orion’s belt?
Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. They look like a matched row from Earth but sit at different distances, Alnilam the farthest.
How far away are the stars of Orion?
In the piece’s figure they range from Tabit, 26.3 light-years (8.07 pc), to Alnilam, 1,980 light-years (606 pc): the farthest is 75 × farther than the nearest.